For the last two days, I’ve been working on getting myself into a better routine when it comes to balancing house work with regular work and all the things that come in between. My new philosophy around the house is ‘If you want something done, do it yourself’. No more waiting for other people to take the hint and get the finger out. I really hope that the FLYLady routines will help me get on the path to a stress free clean and tidy house.

The first part of the routine that I have undertaken is pretty simple, it’s something to get you up and out in the morning. One of the other motivational and triggering aspects of FLYLady are the e’mails which you receive throughout the day reminding you to get back into focus, declutter for 15 minutes, or provides you with some motivational dialog. Following the guidelines on the site, here’s a simplified guideline I’ve been trying to get down

1. Make your bed as soon as you get out of it (unless your DH is still there)
   
2. Shower and dress to shoes
   
3. Fix your hair and face
4. Swish and swipe
   
5. Reboot laundry
6. Breakfast, vitamins and water

Seems pretty obvious right? Things that you do anyways, or nearly anyways, but before now I’ve often ended up puttering about the house in no particular order, before realising that I need to be gone out the door 5 minutes ago, rush and forget to do half the stuff that I was meant to. Also, more importantly the before bedtime routine (which I haven’t figured out yet) gets you ready for the next day. Lunch made, books ready, clothes laid out. I’m hoping that this routine system will be extendable into both work and health aspects of my life. Now, I’m off to buy acontrol journal. You can follow FLYLady over on twitter too

To get closer to completing this goal, in particular as I’m lagging behind, I’m compiling a list of books that I would like to read over the next year and 8 months. Amongst them I wanted to include some of those gems that have shaped the books after them, something with a bit more substance than the juicy Candice Bushnell I have been reading recently. These will be added to my list, alongside some satisfying romance and fantasy.  According to Daniel S. Burt’s The Novel 100: A Ranking of Greatest Novels All Time the Top 10 of the literary novel genre written are:

1     Don Quixote                   Miguel de Cervantes
2     War and Peace                Leo Tolstoy
3     Ulysses                           James Joyce
4     In Search of Lost Time    Marcel Proust
5     The Brothers Karamazov  Feodor Dostoevsky
6     Moby-Dick                     Herman Melville
7     Madame Bovary             Gustave Flaubert
8     Middlemarch                 George Eliot
9     The Magic Mountain      Thomas Mann
10   The Tale of Genji          Murasaki Shikibu

Have I read any of them yet? No, I’m clearly undercultured :S Now, to leave back my overdue library books and pay some fines. War and Peace and Ulysses may be a lot to take on, I’ve started both before, but I’ll be happy if I at least give them a bit of time and then give them a proper read when I’m finished with my phd.

This morning I played the English Vocabulary game on FreeRice.For each meaning of a word you get correct, FreeRice will donate 20 grains of rice throught the UN World Food Program. I learned that I can figure out a lot of the meanings of words that I don’t necessaryl recognise. It’s a good exercise in vocab, and might help me finally finish a crossword. There are a whole bunch of subjects you can play from basic maths to famous paintings or languages. I plucked up the courage to try the French, and supprisingly I could answer some of the questions. The games are quite smart in that the difficulty changes as you progress, so if you start getting things wrong they go down a few levels to help you out. Pretty fun, and if I play another couple of sessions I should have my 10,000 grains. I wonder how many grains are needed to fill a bowl for a decent meal?

According to the website…

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as New Year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

It seems like a good time of year to take some time and reflect on my progress

Bold: Successful
Underline: I’m going to focus my energy on these
Italics: Underway
Strikeout: Not working out so well

Health and Mind
1. Stop trying to be vegan and just be [I've been trying as much as possible]
2. Write about the dreams that I have at night in my blog [Have to do this]
3. Learn about and do a detox [Bought a book, and am learning. Not ready to do this yet]
4. Write a list of 101 things that make me happy [52/101]
5. Me time once a month [0/33]
6. Take multivitamins, in particular iron, calcium and B12 as I’m deficient in each [taken on and off,need to be more vigilant]
7. Start a herb garden [I've had coriander, basil, thyme and chives growing. Oh and chillies too]
8. Buy a bento box and create a new vegan lunch each morning [Making lunch most days for college, but have yet to buy a bento]
9. Swim 101 laps one day [Only on about 10]
10. Exercise every day, be it going to the gym or walking home instead of taking the bus
11. Plan a routine for college, work, fun and exercise and keep track of it
12. Drop X pounds and keep them off for the 1001 days [-Y/X]
13. Spend a whole day alone without mobile, internet or television once each year [0/2]
14. Join a horse-riding school
15. Appreciate the positives [Am going to try and write more to do this]
16. Learn a mind trick inspired by Darren Brown [He taught me about negative suggestion]
17. Eat less soy products. I had a tofu addiction [Eating less soy, I plan to do some research into where to find sustainable soy products]
18. Get abs, even if they are only small ones [This may take some time, and less other responsibilities]
19. Try the raw food diet for at least one week [Bought a book to research this]

Creative
20. Participate in each NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo [0/6] [They came and went this year, maybe next year]
21. Repurchase my flickr pro account and use it once a month [12/33]
22. Read at least one ‘non college related’ book for each month [7/33]
23. Complete 100 snapshots [0/100]
24. Carry a moleskin with me everywhere [It's not always a moleskin, but I always have a note book on hand]
25. Finally buy a new lens for my camera [Bought two!]
26. Take part in embodiment
27. Use my camera to take part in project 365 [3/365] [Got half-way, stopped, and started again]
28. Fill 3 sketchbooks [0/3] [Need to do this! Have started painting again although]
29. Sell a piece of art
30. Go to life drawing sessions [Only been to a few, would like to make it a more regular thing]
31. Sew some clothing that other people would like to wear [Have done, wore them out and even got some complements]
32. Spend a week planning and making an awesome Halloween costume [This year, last year I was in Taiwan]
33. Be part of the creation of a short file and enter it into a film contest [Entered the Doritos ad competition]

Knowledge
34. Take a part-time course to learn a new language [I would like to sign up in October to brush up on my poor French]
35. Rekindle my passion for playing piano [The passion is there, I've been listening to a lot of modern pieces on you tube. Maybe next year I'll buy a decent electric piano]
36. Learn how to recognize the constellations [There is a course in my college on Astrology that clashes with other classes, again, maybe next year.. that or some personal study ]
37. Learn to identify and appreciate wine [Have bought a book, and plan to start a wine club this month]
38. Take swimming lessons [I have been taking aqua aerobic lessons, stopped, and plan to go back]
39. Practice cupcake decoration [Doing a lot of this ^_^]
40. Learn to kiteboard [Got a kite, harness, and the wet gear, been kiting,scared to death but I love it]
41. Learn something new everyday [The plan was that it be written into my moleskin as part of and update with photos, but this is taking too much time. I need to refocus this thing so that I can accomplish it better]
42. Be conscientious of my research question when developing new theories or creating experiments [Have based new implementations on sound psychological theories,not tested yet thought]
43. Be an ethical and critical experimenter [Experiment coming up next month I hope]
44. Learn how to use my unicycle [I suck, must practice more]
45. Learn 10 devil stick tricks [0/10]
46. Learn 10 more poi tricks [1/10] [Learning flowers]
47. Learn to amaze my friends with my contact ball

Work / College
48. Finish my research and graduate with a PhD [Some day]
49. Publish an article
50. Be referenced by another author
51. Build a professional portfolio and a well thought out five year plan
52. Buy a log book and write 100 words each work day [I have been writing every day in my log book. It's massively useful]
53. Lecture with passion. Do this by continuing to engage with my students, reading, and attending as many courses I can find. [Attained a postgraduate certificate in Academic Practice. I need to use some of the resources available to build a progress report for reflection over this coming year]
54. Take time to decide what I want to do in the future [Must do this, I have too many dreams and aspirations]
55. Recreate my website at least once a year [1/3]
56. Become a well known web geek [Vegan food blog was starting to take off but college was a priority, now I have load of foodie picture and recipies that I must upload soon, hopefully my personal one will take off this year]
57. Learn and use LaTeX [Learned the basics of TeXShop, wrote one paper in it so far, moved back to word. Will use as needed and learn more that way]

People
58. Collect my friends postal addresses and post a package or letter to each [I sent xmas cards and pressies to the ones that I had, I'm going to hound more people over the upcoming months and maybe send birthday presents by post, I'm starting to love posting parcels!]
59. Send a text to a different far away friend at least once a month [0/33] [Totally haven't done this yet :S]
60. Ring my grandfather [Planned to over xmas, chickened out, will set a date]
61. Develop and sustain a relationship that is on my own terms with my mother [Have been in contact more, learning what to say and what not to]
62. Organise a picnic [Forgot about this one!]
63. Cook for a dinner party of over a dozen people [Helped cook for several hundred at a party with immense success. It was vegan food and they were mostly omni as well ^_^]

64. Adventure
65. Go to the tourist attractions in Ireland and take a photo at each [This sounds like a good one for this year, I'll wait until the summer to start though]
66. Drive to France and bring back several cases of wine
67. Go on a road trip to the Burning Man [Wow]
68. Travel to see the Cirque Du Soliel [Saw it in Belfast, Vegas, and soon in Dublin]
69. Regularly go home to Sligo to see friends, family and spend time exercising my horse [I go quite regularly, and was out horse riding most days over xmas]
70. Visit Japan [I have been to Taiwan instead, I don't think I'll get to Japan in the next year or so]
71. Go sailing with friends to one of the islands on Lough Gill for a night of camping, bonfire and cheesy tunes.
72. Participate in GimmeYourStuff [Need to do this!]
73. Drive my car at it’s top speed on the autoban in Germany
74. Go “all in” at a table in Vegas
75. See at least one of the great Wonders of the World

Good Will
76. Plant at least one tree every year [0/3] [Haven't done this, but plan to buy fruit trees to donate to the old man so as I can work towards cancling my carbon foot print for the year]
77. Give up products produced by nasty corporations such as cocacola or those that test on animals [Trying to avoid products with Palm Oil, Glaxo Smith Clyne, Coke, and Nestle]
78. Volunteer in some form, eventually I would like to join the life guards [Need to consider this carefully when I have less responsibilities]
79. Donate 10,000 grains of rice on FreeRice
80. Create 101 graffiti art installations
81. Give away 101 things that I do not need to charity [34/101]
82. If a friend is in hospital make sure to visit them [I find this difficult but am working on it]
83. Hang a bird feeder [Bought one for my father]
84. Calculate my carbon footprint and cancel it out [Well, work on lowering it. About 4.8 roughly, have bought 4 energy saver bulbs for the house, more vigilant at recycling]

Personal Growth
85. Register and use my vote [Registered, waiting for the next chance to vote]
86. Post Secret and make it mean something
87. Find the right tattoo and get it done by a famous artist, even if that means traveling to a different country [Still thinking about this]
88. Start a savings account [Have done and have saved for Burning Man road trip, now I need to start saving again]
89. Start the FLYlady routines
90. Pass my driving test [Passed it second time round!]
91. Buy a house (This will be some time towards the end of my research) even if I don’t intend to live in it
92. Learn a new recipe every month [33/33] [More than one a month at this point thanks to my blog
93. Do 27 selfish things and blog about it[0/27]
94. Do 27 unselfish things and blog about it [1/27]
95. Go busking at least once
96. Play a DJ set

Misc
97. Sell on eBay [I have way too many material things]
98. Join 43 Things to track the progress of 101 things in 1001 days [Joined, set it up, never used it]
99. Own my own kiteboarding equipment [Kite and bar so far]
100. Give my dreads the love and attention they deserve and maintain them at least once every two months [3/16] [They need a lot of maintenance at the moment]

Finally
101. On day 1001 publish another 101 list

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.

[via Fortnightly Mailing]

[Above: Pat and the Macarthur kilt with my little cousin. Below: Pat again, 7 years later and my cousin isn't so little now!]